VD IIT OIRIVETE, 
THE seventh summer meeting of the Geological Society of 
America, held at Springfield, Mass., will be remembered as one 
in which matters were transacted with promptness and commend- 
able dispatch, amidst very agreeable surroundings. The principle 
of considering first only those papers whose authors were in 
attendance, and of reading the papers of absent members only 
when called for, proved highly satisfactory. Those who had 
come long distances to the meeting were able to present their 
papers properly, and at the same time were held closely to the 
time allowance they had themselves chosen. And it is to 
be hoped that similar methods will obtain at all future meetings. 
The session was short, lively and interesting. The president of 
the society, Professor N. S. Shaler, and the secretary, Professor 
H. L. Fairchild, are to be congratulated upon the success of 
the meeting. Of the nineteen papers upon the programme 
thirteen were presented by their authors, the others being read 
by title. Professor B. K. Emerson explained the geology of 
the central portion of Massachusetts, upon which he has been 
engaged for twenty-five years, and by means of elaborately 
detailed maps, which he has prepared for publication, and 
with the aid of others he has devised for his class room, he made 
clear the geological structure of the region. 
Previous to the meeting he had conducted an excursion over 
the same ground, and had shown some of the chief exposures of 
metamorphosed paleozoic strata, whose character he has already 
demonstrated. Upon this trip he was assisted by Professor T. N. 
Dale and Professor Wm. H. Hobbs, who have been at work upon 
adjacent districts. The success of this excursion and of the 
short, impromptu one, which Professor Emerson kindly conducted 
on the afternoon of the last day of the meeting, has suggested the 
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